Little difference between London and New York terrorist attacks

Attacks in London and New York were both terrorist incidents. [Photo by Ben Rowe, Creative Commons]

By Tom Regan

On Wednesday there was a “lone wolf” terrorist attack in London. Four people, including a police officer and the attacker, were killed. Late on Monday, there was also a “lone wolf” terrorist attack in New York. A 28-year old white man named James Harris Jackson, a military veteran, started roaming the streets of the city looking to kill black men. He proceeded to attack and kill Timothy Caughman, a black man he had never met before. After the killing, he looked for more victims but says something “spooked” him and he hid in his New York hotel room instead until he surrendered to police Wednesday.

Both attacks were done by men who, while acting alone, identified with groups who promote a violent agenda. Both men deliberately choose to commit their terrorism to attract as much media attention as possible. Jackson admitted that he came to kill black men in New York because it’s the “media capital” of the world and he wanted ”to send a message.” The London attacker, who has not been identified yet, was “inspired by international terrorism” according to police reports (as in ISIS) and obviously choose London and Parliament because it would attract the most media attention. Both men wanted to start a “war.” The London attacker is part of ISIS’s attempt to start a war between the West and Islam. James Jackson said, like Dylan Roof who killed nine Africans-Americans in Charleston in June 2015, that he wanted his actions to inspire a war between blacks and whites in America.

Looking specifically at the New York attack, it can be seen as part of a consistent uptick in hate-related crimes since the start of Donald Trump’s campaign for president. While Trump has not made an overt racist comment during the 2016 campaign and election, or during his short-term as president, his reluctance to condemn outpourings of support from white-supremacist, racist, and neo-Nazi groups has acted like a dog whistle to these groups, who see this reluctance as an invitation to be more open with their often violent hatred and bigotry towards Muslims, Jews, Hispanics and African-Americans.

As well, Trump’s hesitation in condemning recent attacks against Jewish cemeteries and community centers, or the murder of a visiting Indian engineer who was mistaken by a racist attacker for a Muslim, has also led leaders of these targeted communities to question Trump’s motives. Some have been quite specific. Steve Goldstein, head of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, said Trump “quacks, walks and talks like an anti-Semite. That makes him an anti-Semite.”

Where this becomes a problem is in how Trump deals with hate-crime terrorism in the United States, because make no mistake, these attacks are designed to terrorize a community as much as yesterday’s London attack was. It must have been more than a bit disturbing for members of these minority communities to read the report from the Reuters news agency in early February that the Trump administration “wants to revamp and rename a U.S. government program designed to counter all violent ideologies so that it focuses solely on Islamist extremism.” This deliberately ignores the reality of frequently deadly violence directed towards minorities in the United States by people who adhere to a white supremacist, anti-Semitic or Islamophobic ideology.

Donald Trump needs to be president for all Americans, not just his hard-core supporters. He needs to denounce these white supremacist terrorist groups as much as he denounces the Islamic State or Al-Qaeda. Until he does that millions of his fellow countrymen will be concerned that they may be violently attacked, not by Islamist terrorists, but by Americans who do not like the color of their skin or their personal religious beliefs.